Published by SKIRA. Text by Mary Ann Caws, Richard P. Townsend.
This volume showcases 75 “étude” drawings from the French photographer and painter Dora Maar (1907–97). After the artist’s lover, Pablo Picasso, completed his masterpiece Guernica (1937), Maar decided to pivot from photography to painting. The étude drawings emerged during this transitional period, as Maar developed her technique and style by reinterpreting, through sketches, works by Leonardo da Vinci, Vermeer, El Greco, Velázquez and Picasso. Muses and Masters: Dora Maar's Picasso Period presents the artist’s études alongside works by Picasso and other figures of inspiration. It also features scholarly essays that delve into Maar’s work, relationship with Picasso and historical context. Richard P. Townsend attends to Maar’s drawings as documents of a decisive moment in her life and career, and examines the French academic system of the early 20th century. Mary Ann Caws explores the iconography of the chair across Picasso and Maar’s oeuvres.
